April 24, 7:45 WBAI 99.5 fm. A check on our progress as American Muslims; and, Lynne Stewart: the Peoples' Lawyer.

See Ramzy Baroud's assessment on how our Muslim community misuses celebrity Muslims as surrogates for their own stuggle.

Monday April 17 WBAI Radio, NYC. Why is there essential no anti-war movement in the USA?

April 10; A critical look at media coverage of the US assault on Syria; and an update on ReclaimNY.

B. Nimri Aziz weekly radio commentary on events around the globe and in the USA. Listen in at 99.5 fm, or online www.wbai.org where we are livestreamed.

"We are more alike than we are different"

Maya Angelou

March 8, Women's Day Radio Specials 10-11 am on WJFF Radio, 90.5 fm, and 11:am on WBAI, 99.5 New York: B. Nimri Aziz interviews director Amber Fares about her new film "Speed Sisters" and exerpts from 2009-2010 interviews with professional women in Syria, Nadia Khost and Nidaa Al-Islam.

As a Black writer, I was expected to accept the role of victim. That made it difficult in the beginning to be a writer. James Baldwin

I often feel that there must have been something that I should’ve done that I didn’t do. But I can’t identify what it is that I didn’t do. That’s the first difficulty. And the second is, what makes you think you’re it?

Harry Belafonte, activist and singer at 89

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble; It's what you know for sure that just ainst so.

Mark Twain

You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.

Mary Tyler Moore

You can’t defend Christianity by being against refugees and other religions

Pope Francis:

"I don't have to be what you want me to be". Muhammad Ali

"The Secret of Living Well and Longer: eat half, walk double, laugh triple, and love without measure" attributed to Tibetan sources

Articles

Demolishing Palestinian Homes--a daily occurance up to the present

1996-04-05

by Barbara Nimri Aziz

It's quite a spectacle, a Palestinian home being blown apart.
Furniture, dishes and clothes, hastily removed, are deposited
helter-skelter in the path or road. Villagers stand by, silent and
grim. Heavily armed soldiers are massed to prevent any disruption. And
confused, awed children turn sullen.

Americans are not accustomed to seeing Israel's 'demolitions policy' at
work. Most recently, this policy has been aimed at the families of
suicide bombers. But all Palestinians, from toddlers to the elderly,
are familiar with it. Perhaps it’s happened to a neighbor or someone
else they know, or perhaps they experienced it themselves: they’re
hauled out of the house in the early morning and told by a soft-spoken
Israeli officer, with his troops all around, that he had his orders.
The entire town is aroused. Neighbors join in the frantic rush to save
something because they know it’s useless to protest.

The silent frenzy of losing a home this way has no parallel.

It's not like a flood or a fire; it's more like a lynching. There is no
one to call for help. Hundreds of soldiers surround the house and the
village, making sure nothing and no one interferes with the bulldozers
and the dynamite teams.

Legalized destruction

It's all done legally too. That is to say: a paper, written in Hebrew,
is presented to the householder spelling out the order to blow up or
bulldoze his or her home, or to seal it. Typically a family has two
hours' notice. Often the order charges that the house lacks a building
permit.

In a village near Hebron in 1991, I saw the remains of a mosque that
had been flattened weeks before. The land had been "cleared" at that
time because of some building infraction, villagers said.

At other times, families have been told, particularly during the
intifadah (uprising), that their son has been caught (not convicted but
simply picked up and charged) for throwing a Molotov cocktail, or that
he was captured in an attack on an Israeli. In some cases, only the
family orchard (the family’s livelihood), is leveled. Again, the family
is notified when the machines are in already in place, waiting nearby,
on the road behind the soldiers. Orchards have been destroyed simply
because of a report that a group of Palestinian children were hiding
from soldiers among the trees, or because local Jewish settlers said
someone they were pursuing had escaped and was heading in that
direction.

During the first three years of the intifadah, when communal punishment
was the norm for civil disobedience, the Palestinian Human Rights
Information Center recorded 1,726 houses demolitions or sealings of
homes. On average, there are nine Palestinians living in a home. That
represents 15,000 men, women, and children, forcibly made homeless in
those three years. Often the dwelling is not even the family's original
home, but a shelter built with United Nations funding inside a crowded
refugee camp.

Today Israel demolishes certain houses because they are the homes of a
"suicide bombers." By remaining silent, and nonjudgemental, the news
media are, in effect, sanctioning this policy. So conditioned are we,
that whatever is done to an "Islamist terrorist" seems justified and is
publicly endorsed.

Yet are we right to stand by silently and accept this? Should not Israeli seriously reconsider its policy?

Given the level of terror now directed against Israelis, itsleaders
should reexamine the expulsion and demolitions policies that it has
pursued for many years. Did these tactics prove to be an effective
deterrence in the past? What were the benefits?

Consider this: The demolitions are acts of retaliation which strike
deep into the core of Palestinian identity. They are bound to have some
traumatic effect on children. In the short term this devastation may
quell opposition, but the long term effects may be very different.
People may become more embittered and more hostile to Israeli
authority. Blowing up the home of a family may in fact move the
brothers and sisters of a dead man into closer identification with his
actions.

These acts are specifically designed for and executed against
Palestinians. Israel does not respond in this manner to all heinous
acts. Look at the assassin of Rabin by the law student Yigal Amir. Look
at Baruch Goldstein, the Hebron mass murderer. Their actions repelled
most Israelis, yet their homes and families remained unharmed.

Palestinians’ view

Palestinians see this type of Israeli punishment as one more way to
“clear the land," to deny the existence of their people. To
Palestinians, Israel’s reaction to the suicide bombings is another
excuse to implement its "cleansing" policy. People deprived of a home
have one less link with the land.

Surely Israel knows that this kind of punishment is unlikely to have
any deterrence value. With its battalions of terror experts and
psychiatrists and its long, unhappy history with Palestinians, Israel
should know what political consequences of its actions. Children
witness their hones, the places they were born, blown apart. They see
their fathers and the other male relatives helplessly held at gunpoint.
They see the horrified reaction of their mothers and grandmothers.

The house as the center

Because this form of punishment is so rare, few others can imagine the
impact of a house being blown up in front of its owners. First, we have
to understand how central the house is to Palestinian life. Even today,
most Palestinians are born at home. This is the place for daily prayer,
for all meals, for weddings, for homecomings from jail, and for
funerals. This is where everyone gathers to pass the evening. It is not
a shelter; it is a community. It is the place for consolation and joy,
the haven and the refuge.

The mother is the manager, so home is unequivocally associated with her
power and protective role. Harming the house is like violating the
mother. Many children will feel they must avenge this injustice.
Especially with the world community standing by seeming to sanction the
destruction, family members may feel ,ore responsibility to seek
justice. Anyone who understands this would advise Israel to cease this
practice for these reasons if not for moral ones.